Skills that a DevOps Engineer MUST possess

Ever wondered what are the skills that your DevOps Organization should look for its resources for them to fit in your DevOps culture. Among the so many skills people keep on talking about as being relevant to a DevOps organization, we have come up with a refined list of the key technical and soft skills that any engineer MUST possess to contribute to the success of the strategy for your organization.

1. Coding Skills

It is no more a debate whether a DevOps engineer should possess coding skills or not. So, it is a well-established fact that your DevOps service should be able to deliver solution presented on the form of code. Regardless of which part of the DevOps team the engineer represents – QA, Dev, Ops, Security, DBA or data analytics, the ability to not just ‘code’ but ‘offer solution as a code’ is what counts in this case. So, this ultimately boils down to imparting real business value for the stakeholders of the business ( ranging from the customers to the internal stakeholders).

2. Soft Skills & Communication

As a DevOps engineer, it is required to possess the ability to plan one’s communication whether for a sprint planning session, a one-to-one meeting with the manager, coordinating with someone on another team to get things done or communicating some critical details to the stake-holders and decision-makers. Planned and prepared communication where you’re clear about what you’re aiming to get out of a certain communication, becomes even more important when your organization is all set to make its move on to DevOps. Not being prepared for the communication puts you to the risk of not getting what you want out of it, in case the other party has conflicting interests or understanding.

3. Familiarity with Continuous Integration Tools

By means of the continuous integration methodology used in DevOps, the source code updates obtained from all the developers get merged on a specific software build and this helps the team stay updated about any failure encountered in the process. The continuous integration software that the Engineers should be acquainted with include: Jenkins, CruiseControl, CruiseControl.NET, Hudson, Bamboo, Urbancode’s Anthill Pro, ThoughtWorks’ Go, Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server and Jetbrains’ Team City.

4. Familiarity with Infrastructure Automation Tools & web languages

Infrastructure automation is required as an integral part of the methodology and the agile processes to be implemented for any organization and for this reason, the DevOps engineers are also expected to be experienced with the Infrastructure Automation tools such as SaltStack, Ansible, Chef, Docker, Puppet and Windows PowerShell DSC. In addition to this, it is also preferred that the engineers are fluent with the use of the popular web languages such as Ruby, Python, Java and PHP which are all the must-have skills for DevOps experts.

DevOps organizations are on a constant lookout for engineers who have all the required tools and techniques in their arsenal with the right set of soft-skills along with an open-minded approach to fit in their evolving DevOps culture. Planning to implement DevOps to your business? Feel free to contact us and get all your queries resolved with our expert.